Then what needs to be done is tax the hell out of them so they can't reach $7.5 million.

Dave - Just a Man in the Mountains.

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge. Isaac Asimov

I read an articcle about how everybody (or most everybody) tends to think of themselves as middle class. That lots of people are upper middle class or affluent but still see themselves as middle class. I guess that is millionaires also. It is because we tend to associate with people that are just wealtheir or just poorer than we are so we always appear to ourselves to be in the middle.

I know alot of people like this myself who live in homes that are 800K+, send both kids to private schools, take nice vacations, drive recent model vehicles and have country club memberships tell me ademately they are not wealthy. In their mind they are not.

Well, my kids didn't go to private schools; our holidays were the sort where you drive to a beach on a Sunday afternoon; we never even knew anybody who belonged to a country club, let alone belonged ourselves; and our one and only car is eighteen years old. And, oh yeah, our old, ramshackle house is located in a workingclass blue-collar neighbourhood in a workingclass suburb of a big city.

My husband and I are pensioners who are fortunate enough to live in a country where oldies are given subsidised medical care and cheap prescriptions, and we are also given a gold card that enables us to take the train for free. We are extremely grateful for these and other perks that we would find hard to afford otherwise.

So, no, I am sorry but I cannot even begin to identiy with the filthy rich so-called middle class at all. And, I find it very, very hard to believe that the majority of Americans live like millionaires with 800k houses and country club memberships.

If anything, there is no more American middle class, and the country is more and more polarised into the incredibly rich and the incredibly poor.

Well, my kids didn't go to private schools; our holidays were the sort where you drive to a beach on a Sunday afternoon; we never even knew anybody who belonged to a country club, let alone belonged ourselves; and our one and only car is eighteen years old. And, oh yeah, our old, ramshackle house is located in a workingclass blue-collar neighbourhood in a workingclass suburb of a big city.

My husband and I are pensioners who are fortunate enough to live in a country where oldies are given subsidised medical care and cheap prescriptions, and we are also given a gold card that enables us to take the train for free. We are extremely grateful for these and other perks that we would find hard to afford otherwise.

So, no, I am sorry but I cannot even begin to identiy with the filthy rich so-called middle class at all. And, I find it very, very hard to believe that the majority of Americans live like millionaires with 800k houses and country club memberships.

If anything, there is no more American middle class, and the country is more and more polarised into the incredibly rich and the incredibly poor.

NO Solfelgio I did not say that the majority of americans live in 800K mansions. What I said was there is a tendancy to think whatever your lifestyle is as the norm. And people are more likely to downplay their status of wealth and imagine themselves as middle class.

So whereas most american families get by on something like 60K per year other people really believe that 200K is the norm and not wealthy.

Then those people are living in fantasyland and should come down to planet earth.

After awhile, some of us, who live in the real world and have to worry about such mundane things as whether we have enough money to get by, hoping we'll stay healthy, or if our car will hold out, get very tired of having to hear about the trivial problems of the rich and famous.

I have found a rather reverse take on this in the Atlanta burbs: people who are barely middle class who believe they are upper middle class. Some of this derives because housing here is less expensive than in other areas. The cost of living here is slightly lower, too. These people vote Republican when it is not in their best interests.

No one in my family,except for my youger daughter has worked for a union but we support unions. While she was in high school our younger daughter worked in a union grocery store and was better treated than her friend who worked in a non-union grocery.

My greatest concern right now is with coporate wealth uninterested in investing in high speed rail bult here and mainting the rail systems we do have. Our infrastructure needs upgrading; there is little or no interest by coporations awash in capital to get involved here either. Easy overblown profits are wanted and sought. And I've never had a problem with decent profit. I am influenced by Paul Kruger's thinking, which makes me a keynesian I suppose.

...If anything, there is no more American middle class, and the country is more and more polarized into the incredibly rich and the incredibly poor.

Too many people refuse to realize that that gap between the rich and the poor is the main reason our economy is not recovering. The fools running things right now give tax breaks to the rich and to pay for those tax breaks they remove needed services for the poor and elderly. They are doing what they can to make things WORSE!

Dave - Just a Man in the Mountains.

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge. Isaac Asimov

...If anything, there is no more American middle class, and the country is more and more polarized into the incredibly rich and the incredibly poor.

Too many people refuse to realize that that gap between the rich and the poor is the main reason our economy is not recovering. The fools running things right now give tax breaks to the rich and to pay for those tax breaks they remove needed services for the poor and elderly. They are doing what they can to make things WORSE!

The biggest problem, IMO, is that the rich are letting "uncertainty" and fear control them. They refuse to spend, invest, expand or create jobs because of this fear and seem to be forgetting how they made money in the first place.

The economy is bad because the rich are too scared to make it better.

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells, While hammers fell like ringing bells In places deep, where dark things sleep, In hollow halls beneath the fells.

For ancient king and elvish lord There many a gloaming golden hoard They shaped and wrought, and light they caught To hide in gems on hilt of sword. - J.R.R. Tolkien